Each year, the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on the Structure and Organization of Government (SOG), sponsor of the journal Governance, awards the Levine Prize. The Prize is awarded to a book that makes a contribution of considerable theoretical or practical significance in the field of public policy and administration, takes an explicitly comparative perspective, and is written in an accessible style.  It is named in honor of Charles H. Levine, who was an accomplished member of the Research Committee and served on the editorial board of Governance. The prize is awarded on the recommendation of a distinguished committee.

2010 Levine Prize: Committee and submissions

The 2010 Levine Prize Committee is comprised of Professor Mirko Noordegraaf, Utrecht School of Governance (Chair); Professor Susan Phillips, Carleton University; and Professor Anthony B.L. Cheung, Hong Kong Institute of Education.  Download information about how to nominate books for the 2010 Levine Prize: Levine_Prize_2010.  Nominated books must reach all three members of the committee by 31 March 2010.

The 2009 Levine Prize

August 21, 2009 — The 2009 Levine Prize has been awarded to Privatizing Pensions: The Transnational Campaign for Social Security Reform (Princeton University Press, 2008), by Mitchell A. Orenstein.

This year’s Levine Prize Committee was composed of Professors Barry Rabe (University of Michigan, chair), Graham Wilson (Boston University), and Mirko Noordegraaf (Utrecht School of Governance).

The Committee says: “The opening of personal pension statements has become a dramatic moment in recent years, given far-reaching shifts in many pension systems around the world and doubts concerning the viability of many plans. Mitchell A. Orenstein offers a penetrating analysis of the evolution of pension governance, placing emphasis on the ability of transnational actors to persuade many of their national counterparts to embrace privatization principles in recent decades. From Chile to Kazakhstan, Privatizing Pensions demonstrates how advocates of pension privatization advanced their case in recent decades through a mixture of ideational tactics and material incentives. These entrepreneurs were not uniformly influential, and yet their overall record suggests a considerable capacity to influence decisions that generally would be expected to be sealed within a domestic policy process. Orenstein’s contribution will be of interest to a wide range of scholars and policymakers, both for its insights into this particular area of governance and also for its exploration of the transnational-national dynamic. The book also opens important doors to further investigation of this dynamic in other policy arenas. The Award Committee is pleased to select this book as the 2009 recipient of the Levine Award.”

Mitchell A. Orenstein is S. Richard Hirsch Associate Professor of European Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.  Professor Orenstein’s work focuses on the international political economy of policy reform, exploring the ways that democratic polities seek to adapt and adjust to pressures of economic globalization and neoliberal policy reform.  His research has concentrated on the global spread of pension privatization, Central and East European economic transitions, and strategies of democratization. Prior to his arrival at Johns Hopkins University in 2007, Orenstein held appointments at Harvard, Yale, Brown, Syracuse, and Moscow State Universities.  His most recent position was Director of the Moynihan Center for European Studies at Syracuse University and Associate Professor of Political Science.

The Prize Committee has also given an honorable mention to The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (Princeton University Press, 2008), by David E. Lewis.

The Committee says: “David E. Lewis merits special recognition for The Politics of Presidential Appointments. This book revisits timeless questions on the relationship between elected officials and their appointees to senior posts through a rigorous examination of the evolving American case from the Kennedy era through the George W. Bush presidency. Lewis brings fresh insights into the ways in which presidents use their appointees and how this impacts agency performance.”

David E. Lewis is Professor of Political Science and Law (by courtesy) at Vanderbilt University. His research interests include the presidency, executive branch politics, and public administration. He is also the author of Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design (Stanford University Press, 2003) and numerous articles on American politics, public administration and management.  Current projects explore the political views of government agencies and their employees, the politics of presidential appointments, and various aspects of public sector management performance. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Previous winners of the Levine Prize

2008:  Mark Thatcher, Internationalisation and Economic Institutions: Comparing the European Experiences.  Oxford University Press, 2007. “This volume is an important new theoretical contribution in its specification of a concept of internationalization that is not globalization and its understanding of national economic institutional reform in a way that is not just supra-nationalization within continental treaty blocs. Its theoretical and empirical sophistication, along with its comparative scope, more than warrant the recognition and honor of the Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize.”

2007: Alasdair Roberts, Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age, Cambridge University Press, 2006. “The book deals skillfully with an issue of central importance in modern governance: the openness of government to its citizens. Roberts charts the rise of transparency mandates across the globe, noting the potential of laws, such as the Freedom of Information Act, to foster greater accountability and responsiveness in government. However, Blacked Out shows how governments undermine or curtail transparency laws by creating exemptions for security issues, erecting administrative barriers to make access to information more difficult, and undermining implementation by failing to provide necessary resources. The book also skillfully considers how current trends—toward privatization, globalization, networks, and technology changes—affect openness in government.”

2006: Herrington J. Bryce, Players in the Public Policy Process: Nonprofits as Social Capital and Agents.  Palgrave/MacMillan, 2005. “Organizations with substantial public trust and public purposes themselves, nonprofit organizations often compete head-on with much larger and often more professional private corporations for government contracts. The NGOs often win. In fact, they consistently win in many areas. Bryce demonstrates the reasons for these facts. In applying well-developed theories from principal–agent literature, he makes clear that there are substantial advantages to public–NGO alliances in government service delivery. The committee believes that the book has general applicability and will be increasingly important in the years to come as governments across the globe continue to search for the most efficient and effective ways to provide public services. Partnerships with organizations that themselves serve a public service are already a substantial part of this equation and will increasingly be so. Bryce shows why this is the case.”

2005: Atul Kohli, State-Directed Development: Political Power and Industrialization in the Global Periphery. Cambridge University Press, 2004. “Atul Kohli’s argument is complex and eschews formulas or simple recipes. His cases show that much depends on circumstances and the discovery by trial and error of policies that work. The lesson to be drawn is that there are no simple solutions, easily duplicated by aspiring industrializers. Instead, leaders must know the historical and institutional circumstances of their societies, must be able to identify challenges and opportunities, and must have the political steel to articulate bold solutions and carry them out.”

2004: Jonathan Malloy, Between Colliding Worlds: The Ambiguous Existence of Government Agencies for Aboriginal and Women’s Policy.  University of Toronto Press, 2003. “This is a persuasively argued, lively written book. The committee was particularly impressed with the sustained comparison across two policy fields in two countries, and the way in which the author integrates conceptual and empirical analysis. This is an unusually enjoyable read, which offers an important policy message: in a world of proliferating social activism, ambiguity in administration may be a blessing rather than a curse for making governance more efficient, effective, and legitimate.”